


carving through the layers

by acidulication



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Animal Abuse, Bad Parents Jack and Janet Drake, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Protective Damian Wayne, Shifter AU, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, but like abuse of people who turn into animals yk, damian be like @ the drakes You Will Die By My Sword, damian is like 11 and tim 14, tim turns into a cat !
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25961233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acidulication/pseuds/acidulication
Summary: Sometimes, Timothy couldn’t stand the sight of another person, and other times, he would break down at the simple idea of being left alone.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Damian Wayne
Comments: 27
Kudos: 627





	carving through the layers

**Author's Note:**

> hello !!!!!!! this is from my shifter AU which u can read about here !!!  
>  here
> 
> basically in this AU a big part of humanity can actually shift into animals, and people usually are chill about it but the drakes are Trash !!!  
> this AU doesn't have robins/not child heroes. damian's league training was much more mild and ra's actually loves his grandson he's just a weird dude who also happens to be immortal and take dips into green pits. talia is a good mom who raised her child Good . they're not even mentionned in the fic i jsut wanted to say it.
> 
> BIG BIG BIG BIG thanks to D without who i would NOT be here sejfojofsejosef i havent written in a whole year and i this is Not my first langage rip !!!!!!!!!!!!! i love u so much mwah mwah

There were several layers to get through to truly get to know Timothy Jackson Wayne, Damian thought, each one of them plagued by inaccurate notions of what love and affection should be. And after you carved through these ones, you’d hit another layer built from emotional and physical abuse that the cat shifter had trouble acknowledging. After a year of living with his father -- and his assortment of siblings as well as his grandfather that wasn’t officially family only because he and Bruce had never gone through the paperwork -- Damian knew that there were many things that were not to be done or talked about around his older brother.

Some weeks, he wouldn’t see human Timothy. Other weeks, he wouldn’t even see cat Timothy as his brother hid from everything and everyone in tiny hiding places only Cassandra (because she had the same hiding places) or Stephanie (because she was Tim’s best friend) knew of. When he returned, Richard was always all over him, as a human or his panther form, holding the cat gently in his arms, or licking his fur until Tim fell asleep against him. Sometimes, Tim would cling to everyone and everything, unable to be left alone. He would follow their father everywhere, or Alfred, or snuggle against Jason as he did homework, or even take space on Damian’s shoulders as he walked around the manor, attending to his own business.

Sometimes, Timothy couldn’t stand the sight of another person, and other times, he would break down at the simple idea of being left alone.

  
  
  
  


When Damian first came to the manor, his and Timothy’s friendship had been strained. Damian did not want to get along with his father’s children, and although the older ones had just brushed it off as Damian being a brat, Tim had taken it much more to heart.

( _ Good _ , Damian had thought then,  _ he’s not my brother and he will never be. _ )

However, the flaw in his “don’t get attached and don’t make friends with Father’s kids” plan had been to underestimate those very same kids’ ability to just _sit on him and_ _make him pet them_. If it was a crime, Timothy would be in prison with a life sentence. 

After a month into his stay at the manor, Damian had become Timothy’s favorite seat, favorite pillow, favorite  _ bed.  _ He would simply be sitting on a couch or a chair and he’d feel soft paws tucking themselves under him, or fur and soft ears pressing against him, or the small cat climbing on his shoulders, making himself Damian’s partner for the day, or at least the next few hours. And Damian  _ liked it. _

  
  


Tim would never purr, never bite, never even scratch. Wouldn’t make a sound. Damian didn’t want to admit the way that the boy seemed to try to make himself as small and forgotten as possible upset him. Even at his age, Damian was smart. He knew the older boy had been hurt. He didn’t know how, and he didn’t want to ask, didn’t think it was his place, but he  _ knew _ .

  
  
  
  
  
  


(One night, he heard his father and Timothy in the kitchen. It was a quarter past three in the morning andDamian had stayed awake to talk to his father after patrol. He wanted to talk about his mother, but instead heard a small voice he so rarely heard anymore, saying that if _ Damian _ liked it better when he was shifted, then he’d just stay like that around him.

“How is that different from how your parents wanted you to be around them ?”

Timothy didn’t answer, but Damian knew this wasn’t a conversation meant for him even if he was the one being discussed. He heard a sob, and bodies shifting on the floor.

Damian decided he’d try to spend more time with Tim as a human. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.)

  
  
  


So he started to interact with Tim as a human. He was taller than Damian (for now), wasn’t great at expressing himself, and had trouble with so many things that Damian wondered if he had even been with humans before Bruce had adopted him. He had two small scars on his face that Damian recognized from his shifted form and a small dimple that would show on his right cheek when he’d smile. (Tim didn’t smile that much to begin with, and Damian  _ knew _ that he was probably smiling more now than what he used to. That was an upsetting thought.)

  
  


No one really discussed how Tim looked at his food like it was gonna jump out of his plate and disappear, or how he had days where he just wouldn’t talk at all. No one ever talked about the long sleeves that would always hide his hands. It was probably a sign for Damian that asking would just make Timothy uncomfortable.

  
  


After many days of mulling it over, Damian realised that  _ yes, _ he liked Timothy and  _ yes, _ that was his brother. If Tim had trauma and things upsetting him, he’d rather know so he could help.

  
  
  


“Timothy.”

Tim didn’t make a sound when he startled, eyes wide as he clutched his precious mug of freshly heated tea close to his chest.

Perhaps sneaking up on him at one in the morning in the kitchen wasn’t the best idea. 

“Damian ?”

Tim uncurled slightly from his defensive stance. For once, he wasn’t wearing an outer layer with sleeves three times too long, but instead a familiar, well worn short sleeved yellow shirt.

And then Damian saw the scars.

  
  
  


Tim probably knew the second Damian noticed. He could feel his eyebrows shoot up and a frown form on his face as he took a step forward. Tim just held his mug and bit his lower lip, unmoving.

As he got closer, Damian could see his brother’s hands. More precisely, his  _ fingers. _ He had baby nails that were only half grown with rosy painful skin underneath. Some of it was cracked and raw like it had bled recently. The wounds on each of his fingers didn’t look fresh, but they were clearly tender and struggling to heal. The scarred skin reached his knuckles and the peak of it was already healed but whiter than Timothy’s already pale skin. And it looked so  _ painful _ .

The silence stretched on. Damian’s mouth opened and closed every few seconds, words stuck in his throat. He could see Timothy was starting to get uncomfortable, trying to figure out what was going on through the younger boy’s mind and--

“Oh.” He removed his right hand from the mug, taking the handle in the other one, and wiggled his fingers for a second before hiding them in a fist. “Is this the first time you’ve seen them ?”

Damian reached out tentatively toward Tim’s closed fist. “What.  _ What _ happened to your hands ?”

  
  


And he sounded  _ so  _ upset, and Tim didn’t like to talk about it, but. But he knows Damian and he trusts Damian and he  _ wants _ him to know, somehow, and it’s weird, this journey their relationship has been on. He sat on one of the counter’s chairs, suddenly feeling way too exposed for this conversation. He really should have grabbed his sweater. Without any other alternatives, he tucked them under his thighs.

He didn’t know where to start. He wasn’t sure how much Damian knew, what the rest of the family had told him. He seldom talked about any of it, even if Bruce wished he did.

  
  


(“You need to  _ process _ everything that happened, Tim. You need to talk about it, if not to me, then to your therapist,” he kept saying. Tim doesn’t really talk to his therapist. She’s a lovely lady and she always offers him a nice, understanding smile, but after maybe a year and a half of going to therapy, he had barely touched the subject.)

Once again, the silence stretched on. But Damian patiently stayed, letting Tim carefully think it over. “Um.”

_ Okay.  _ “Before Bruce.” Tim paused, something stuck in his throat. “Um. My parents.”

He sucked in a breath, and a dam opened. 

“My parents never liked shifters. They thought they were dirty. Animals pretending to be humans. Best case scenario, they could be kept as pets, if they behaved. Worst case scenario… they thought they should be put down. My mother had relatives that were shifters that she just... cut off from her life. My dad did too. I know a lot of DI’s employees were let go off after it was reported they were shifters.  _ They have to turn all the time, _ they would say,  _ they’ll just work less than normal people. They’ll hurt the company _ they’d say, as justification.”

  
  


Tim bit his lower lip, straightened up, looking at a far point behind Damian. “I started shifting when I was five.”

Damian’s breath hitched. The words just kept pouring out of his lips, as long as he didn’t look anyone in the eyes, nothing was gonna stop him. “My mom yelled. I think my dad kicked me. I was so young, just a kitten, and they were fighting. I think my dad blamed my mom and her  _ defective _ bloodline, and my mom would say that he wasn’t even good enough to  _ correct _ my _ defects _ . That’s a fight they’ve had so often, right in front of me. I would hear everything. I think they wanted me to know that I was.” Tim swallowed. “An undesirable.”

“At that time, not a lot of people knew that the Drakes had had a child, so it was easy for them to just, make everyone forget about me. You can ask Bruce, he totally forgot there was supposed to be a kid next door.” He gave a half hearted smile. It held no joy. Tim sighed. “They did a lot of things, probably a lot that I haven't exactly filed as abusive and bad yet.” Damian nodded silently, in a year he had been witness to numerous  _ no Tim, parents aren’t supposed to do that, family isn’t supposed to do that _ moments. The older boy finally removed one of his hands from under his thigh so Damian could see. “This was when they declawed me.”

  
  


Damian’s eyes went wide. “When they  _ what _ ?”

The anger in his tone made Tim warm, and a bit sad, and  _ man he should really just. Talk to his therapist, shouldn’t he. _

“After they discovered I was a shifter, I wasn’t allowed out of the house and I wasn’t allowed to eat at the table with them, whether I was human or cat. They started restricting things from me. I think they  _ feared _ that I would just, one day, tear the house apart.”

“You’re so small even now... “ Damian’s voice wavered. Tim wasn’t sure if it was because he was angry or upset. “Did they really think a  _ kitten _ would do much damage ? Weren’t they rich ?”

Tim gave him half of a smile. “That’s the reason they gave me. I’m not sure why they did most of what they did.” He replaced his hand under his thigh. “A man came over when I was little. I’m not sure if he was an actual vet, or a doctor, or anything. I just know they didn’t want anyone to know what they were doing. I don’t think it was well done. It still hurts.”

His voice was so quiet by the end, and Damian wished Bruce hadn’t locked away his sword when he first arrived, because he’s never felt the need to use it as strongly as now. “At least it didn’t hurt when I was locked in the cat box, since i couldn’t do much more than get up.”

  
  


His little brother’s face suddenly went dangerously blank. “The  _ what now _ ?”

_ (Ah. Yes. This wasn’t a thing shifter parents did. Right.) _

Tim shrugged and looked away, reaching out for the mug he’d set down on the counter earlier. He suddenly felt so exhausted, the weight of the words that left him clawing back into his brain. “It’s fine, Dami.”

“It--” Tim put his palm over Damian’s lips.

“Listen, I don’t think I ever  _ talked _ that much about it. The first time around, Bruce guessed most of it.”  _ And he was so tired _ . “Let’s just. End this here. I just want to go to sleep, now.”

He slowly removed his hand from his brother’s mouth, and Damian’s upset frown made his heart ache, but everything was  _ so much _ right now. Tim turned around, his back to Damian, and headed toward the door but fingers caught the back of his shirt. And then two arms wrapped around his waist, and a cheek pressed into his left shoulder. It was so very warm.

“I’m sorry.”  _ It’s fine, _ he wanted to say. But he couldn’t. “You didn’t deserve this.”  _ It’s fine. _

The silence stretched for a few seconds.  _ It’s fine. _ Tim sobbed. The words in his mouth dried up like water, all of them pooling at his ankle and leaving him soaked with emotions he’d never allowed himself to feel. 

“I wish Father had found you earlier. I wish you’d never gotten hurt like that.”

_ It’s not fine _ . Tim’s hands gently trembled against Damian’s, where he was holding him. “You deserve better than pain.”

Tim’s face was wet. “Yeah,” he choked out. “I do.”

And this was too much for him, and he needed the comfort of being small, so small, and suddenly he  _ was.  _ He was tiny in Damian’s arms, a kitten held by two warm hands, by his  _ family _ , the ones he loves and he knows loves him back.

_ It’s okay, you’re safe now _ , he could hear Damian say, but he wasn’t processing anything, just letting himself be held and comforted. His paws felt numb, as they often did, but there as a familiar ache mixed with it, one that came from his chest and traveled down his limbs, one that wasn’t even physical, and he just needed to be  _ warm _ . And Damian kept on holding him.

The younger boy hadn’t expected that when he’d cornered Tim. He hadn’t expected all the affection he had for him to jump out of his skin either, but if it could comfort his brother, then so be it. 

“Let’s get upstairs, um ? Do you want to sleep in your room or with me tonight ?”

He felt the cat shift against his neck, head pressing closer. “Okay.”

  
  


When Damian reached his bed, kicking his socks off and slipping inside, not dropping Tim for a second, the older boy -- cat -- was already asleep against him. Damian settled him on the mattress, curling up around him, an arm holding him close. Maybe that night he dreamt of hurting people he didn’t know the face of, but he remembered his brother smiling next to him, and that was worth it to him.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> HI i hope u enjoyed it !!!!! if you want to know more about this AU u can read all the posts in order [here <3](https://acidulication.tumblr.com/tagged/shifter%20au/chrono) !!! dont forget to give me a thumbs up and comment ahaha *funky end of video music*


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